Game time is of the utmost importance. Failure to keep careful track of time expenditure by player characters will result in many anomalies in the game. The stricture of time is what makes recovery of hit points meaningful. Likewise, the time spent adventuring in wilderness areas removed concerned characters from their bases of operation – be they rented chambers or battlemented strongholds. Certainly the most important time stricture pertains to the manufacture of magic items, for during the period of such activity no adventuring can be done. Time is also considered in gaining levels and learning new languages and more. All of these demands upon game time will force choices upon player characters, and likewise number their days of game life.Thus spake Gygax in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. As he often did, Gary was undoubtedly engaging in a bit of hyperbole in order to emphasize a point, but that point is well-taken all the same. I quote the above paragraphs because I was reminded of them while re-reading The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures volume of OD&D, which does include, as Gygax states, a section on recording the passage of time.
One of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in the campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.
Time in OD&D is framed, initially, in reference to the healing of wounds, which takes place at a rate of 1 hit point every other day of rest after the first. The text notes, in a superb example of understatement, "This can take a long time." It then goes on to discuss time more broadly and suggests that the refree
Recon [sic] the passage of time thus:Those four lines are very intriguing, both for what they say about OD&D play as it was conceived by its authors and for what they say about OD&D as it was actually played back in the day.
Dungeon expedition = 1 week
Wilderness adventure = 1 move = 1 day
1 Week of actual time = 1 week of game time
Let me begin by stating that I keep track of time in my Dwimmermount campaign. Since the game began 291 days have passed. That number is based on the notion that each week of actual time represents a week of game time, with some additional days added based on in-game journeys -- the three days back and forth between Adamas and Dwimmermount, for example -- the manufacture of scrolls by Dordagdonar, and other similar time sinks. I settled on the "1 actual week = 1 game week" out of convenience, as I hadn't remembered the OD&D guideline, but I'm pleased my instincts on the matter were sound.
What seems immediately apparent to me is that OD&D's understanding of a "campaign" is still strongly informed by a wargames mentality, which only makes sense historically. Nevertheless, it's interesting that OD&D presumes that "as the campaign goes into full swing it is probable that there will be various groups going every which way and all at different time periods." This presumes multiple adventuring parties within the same campaign, which, again, only makes sense when you consider the 20-player standard of OD&D.
What's most striking to me, though, is that all this emphasis on time-keeping and how long every thing takes paints a picture that is strategic in its focus rather than tactical. I've mentioned before that dungeoneering is more like mounting an exploratory expedition into terra incognita than it is to simple treasure seeking. The fact that OD&D often uses "expedition" as a synonym for a dungeon adventure only encourages such an interpretation more strongly in my mind. Old school D&D would thus seem to be a game focused on long-term projects and goals. Or at least long-term projects and goals form an important part of its foundation, acting to ground individual game sessions in a larger context. That's why I think "story" is an emergent property of an old school campaign rather than its actual focus.
In any case, I'm still pondering the meaning and ramifications of OD&D's time-keeping conventions. Even though I'm abiding by something close to them in my own OD&D campaign, I can't yet say they've had any specific impact on play, but that may be because we've only been playing for a (comparatively) short time and that, like "story," the significance of it all can only be seen well after the fact.